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"On September 10, 1838, a telegraph instrument constructed in the United States on the same principles, but slightly modified to make it portable, was exhibited to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and explained by M. Arago at the session of that date. An account of this exhibition is recorded in the Comptes Rendus.
Thereafter he conceived successively a Marie Touchet, a tragedy in prose entitled Don Philip and Don Carlos, a farce comedy, Prudhomme Bigamist, a drama, The Courtiers, written in collaboration with Emmanuel Arago and Jules Sandeau, and a high-class comedy, The Grande Mademoiselle, also in collaboration with Sandeau.
Of these, Arago, Crémieux, and Gamier-Pagès had been members of the Provisional Government in 1848, while Léon Gambetta, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, and Jules Simon afterwards distinguished themselves. Rochefort, the insurrectionist, made but one step from prison to the council board, and was admitted among the new rulers.
And afterwards, alas! in July of '36, when Armand Carrel, causelessly assuming a quarrel not his own, because of a fancied attempt to degrade the press, by rendering its issues accessible, by cheapness, to the masses, was slain in the Bois de Vincennes by the vulgar bullet of Émile de Girardin, of 'La Presse. What reparation to our cause was it that our champion had died like a hero, and Châteaubriand, Arago, Cormenin and Béranger wept around his grave?
M. Gambetta issued proclamations every half hour, calling upon us, in more or less flowery language, to die for our country. M. Arago, the Mayor, followed suit, heading his manifestoes with the old, rallying cry, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité." I suppose the French are so constituted that they really cannot exist without processions, bouquets to statues, and grand phrases.
"M. Arago called upon the illustrious poet and submitted to him that France had just been shaken to its inmost centre; that it was important to avoid exposing it to the risk of too sudden reactions; that the Duke of Orleans would have it in his power, on becoming king, to do much for public liberty; and that it became a man like Viscount de Chateaubriand to abstain from making himself the mouth-piece of the agitators at the commencement of a reign.
The following list of names of those proposed to constitute the Provisional Government was then read off: Lamartine, Marie, Ledru Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pagés. Some of these names were received with cheers, others with hisses. It was impossible to take any formal vote. The voices of the Deputies were lost in the clamor of the mob.
'I have always admired, he says, 'the prudence and philosophical reserve shown by M. Arago in resisting the temptation to give a theory of the effect he had discovered, so long as he could not devise one which was perfect in its application, and in refusing to assent to the imperfect theories of others. Now, however, the time for theory had come.
M. Arago told me that David, the sculptor, wished to make a medallion of me; so he came and sat an hour with me, and pleased me by his intelligent conversation and his enthusiasm for art. A day was fixed, and he took my profile on slate with pink wax, in a wonderfully short time. He made me a present of a medallion in bronze, nicely framed, and two plaster casts for my daughters.
He tells me that Arago, Pelletan, and Garnier Pagès were delighted to leave Paris, and that it was only the absolute necessity of their being as soon as possible at Bordeaux, that induced General Vinoy to consent to their departure. As for Gambetta, he says, it is not probable that he has now many adherents in the provinces; and it is certain that he has very few here.
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